Recent content by TheRatmeister

Still no date on Kent St though?

Option 3:

Denisification of existing built up areas does come with some downsides. But what's the alternative? Build more single family homes in conservation land and stretch municipal services even further? Let home prices in Boston rise and rise until there's nobody left to work service jobs and...

It depends. Generally the actual difference is in the motor's power and therefore the maximum possible speed, but also the illegal ones do tend to be noticeably larger even if they don't strictly have to be. If I were writing the legislation the 'soft' criteria would be maximum speed and tire...

To be blunt I would describe the restrictions as either idiotic, regressive, or both, a bit akin to trying to ban cars from public roads in 1905. The only way I can reasonably explain a rule like that is the the councilors fundamentally do not understand what an e-bike actually is, and they...

Russia has been under a diesel export ban for months at this point, and this deal only creates more incentives for Ukraine to strike Russian export terminals and refineries, especially as the war continues to dive deeper into a civilian infrastructure slugging match. I think it's pretty dubious...

Sure but it's not an isolated case, and there will always be some need for route variants. Take the 'variant' of the 15 that runs from Haymarket to Mattapan. That's not the 15, that's (almost) literally an entirely different route that happens to share part of its run with the 15.

Still more expensive than European orders generally are at this point (seemingly a ~1.5-2x ratio, ish) but given the lack of scale in North America so far it's honestly pretty good for transit project pricing. Now if only we could actually learn from European best-practices for BEMU operations...

Okay but that's all arbitrary, the MBTA controls what the SDP says. If a stupid numbering scheme meets the SDP as written but a sane one doesn't, then the MBTA should change the SDP to align with a better numbering scheme.

It drives me crazy how the T operates different routes with identical numbers as if they're allergic to having route numbers that only run during the peak or something. That is the route of the old 72, just call the short-turn the 72 and the full run the 75. Or if you don't want a different...

Yeah for rail/real-estate you really need extraordinary patience. I can't imagine you'd find a public company willing to do it and even for a private company it's reasonably risky. A lot can go wrong with both infrastructure construction and real-estate development, as Brightline has learned.

Yeah it's been a long time coming. It's a rough time to be a real estate developer right now and intercity rail like Brightline hasn't exactly spurred demand like regional rail or a metro line does.

As @KCasiglio said, this is exactly what MPOs are for.

The MA interactive property map which lets you see the borders and ownership of every parcel of land in MA. I imagine a decent chunk of people here know about this already but I figured I'll post it anyways.

It's truly impressive just how much damage SEPTA has done to basically everyone at least tangentially connected to it in the past 50 years. Should be the first lecture in Transit Governance 101 under "What not to do"